Ayvalık Old Town

Ayvalık was a Greek town - Kydonies - and until the population exchange of 1923 it was one of the wealthiest on this coast, its money made from olives and the soap and oil that came from them. The fabric is entirely that: cut-stone houses two and three storeys high with tall shuttered windows and iron balconies, packed along steep cobbled lanes that run down to the harbour, and among them the enormous stone olive oil depots and soap factories, some derelict, some converted into hotels and galleries. Several nineteenth-century churches survive, converted to mosques after 1923 - Taksiyarhis, now a museum, and Ayios Yannis, now the Saatli Mosque, are the ones to look for, with their Orthodox architecture and Ottoman minarets side by side. The old town has gentrified steadily but remains a lived-in place with hardware shops and bakeries between the boutique hotels. Olive oil is still the local product and worth buying here.

What you actually see

• The stone lanes - steep cobbled streets of Greek-era houses.
• The oil depots - vast olive and soap factories, some converted.
• The converted churches - Taksiyarhis and the Saatli Mosque.
• The harbour - fishing boats and the seafront restaurants.

When to go

April to June and September to October. August is hot and crowded; winter is quiet with many places closed.

Honest expectations

The lanes are steep, cobbled and hard going in heat or with luggage. Restoration is uneven - fine hotels sit beside collapsing warehouses. Parking in the old town is close to impossible.

Nearby

Cunda Island is across the bridge; Şeytan Sofrası and Sarımsaklı beach are south.